The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems, and more particularly, to performance of a user equipment (UE).
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasts. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example of an emerging telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard promulgated by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). It is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lower costs, improve services, make use of new spectrum, and better integrate with other open standards using OFDMA on the downlink (DL), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in LTE technology. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.
For example, in a W-CDMA system, the first step (Step 1) of cell search may involve energy accumulation over multiple slots of a radio frame and return the strongest “N” peaks above a certain threshold. A peak may refer to a relatively high energy indication and the energy threshold may be selected to reduce target false alarm rate. Although, some of the strongest “N” peaks may exceed the threshold, they may not correspond to a correct slot timing of a cell. These peaks that do not correspond to the correct slot timing of the cell may be referred to as “false” peaks. The false peaks may trigger subsequent searcher tasks (e.g., frame synchronization or Step 2 of cell search) and may consume significant battery power of the UE.
Thus, there is a desire for a method and an apparatus for pruning false peaks during slot synchronization at a UE